Race Relations in the United States

races in the United States, we are facing an astonishing paradox. In the first place, the increasingly certain dictum of science is that there are no "races," in any exact scientific sense; that no measurements of human beings, of bodily development, of head form, of color and hair, of psychological reactions, have succeeded in dividing mankind into different, recognizable groups: that so-called "pure " races seldom, if ever, exist and that all present mankind, the world over, are "mixed " so far as the so-called racial characteristics are concerned. Notwithstanding these facts, and indeed, in the very face of them, we have serious discussions of race in the United States and of race relations; scientific investigations, based on race measurements; and widespread assumption among intelligent people that there are between certain large groups of men ineradicable, and, for all practicable purposes, unchangeable racial differences; and that the limitations of race can, to some extent, be measured; and that the question of the relations between these groups is the greatest of social problems. When, now, a nation of reasonable human beings faces such a contradiction and paradox, the danger to their development and culture is great. The greatest danger lies not in the so-called "problems'" of race, but rather in the integrity of national thinking and in the ethics of national conduct. Such a nation, if it persists in its logical contradictions, is bound to develop fools and hypocrites: fools, who in the presence of plain facts, cannot think straight; and hypocrites, who in the face of clear duty, refuse to do the right thing and yet pretend to do it.